in French

United Nations
General Assembly
Fifty-third session

72nd plenary meeting
30 November 1998, New York

Provisional

Mr. Erdõs (Hungary)
(interpretation from French)

Hungary associates itself with the statement made earlier by the Ambassador of Austria on behalf of the European Union.

We are pleased by the positive and sometimes spectacular results obtained in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the framework of the peace process. At the same time, Hungary believes that the achievements of that process are not yet sufficient to enable us to regard this wide-ranging international undertaking as concluded. Indeed, significant objectives have yet to be achieved, including in the area of the return of refugees and displaced persons. In several days' time the Peace Implementation Council will hold its annual meeting and set new short-term and long-term priorities for international activities in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The return of refugees, the arrest of war criminals who are still at large and cooperation with the Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, as well as the economic situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina, will undoubtedly continue to receive special attention.

Multifaceted international assistance to Bosnia and Herzegovina remains indispensable. Given the tragic events that took place in that country, we cannot be discouraged in the face of the many kinds of setbacks and difficulties that arise in the process of national reconstruction. We believe that it is necessary to seek tirelessly the modalities and initiatives that will make this unprecedented international cooperation more effective. To resign ourselves to the problems can only play into the hands of the enemies of reconciliation who are still among us, who have not given up their previous designs and who draw strength from the reflexes and instincts of aggressive nationalism or rely on selfish interests. That being said, it will now be necessary to focus further on the creation of an economy that in the near future will be able to do without such foreign assistance and will be able to ensure the sustainable development of the country.

Reconciliation and democratic coexistence are not a given. What is absolutely vital in this respect is the cooperation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, of its two entities and of the three ethnic communities among themselves and with the concert of nations. Only in this way can the contribution of the international community be meaningful and play its proper role. One of the fundamental pillars of reconciliation remains the arrest and sentencing of war criminals. In this context, it is impossible to ignore the serious failings regarding cooperation with the Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. This question was at the heart of the debate a few days ago in this very Hall, and the draft resolution submitted under this agenda item refers to it forcefully enough and explicitly indicates those responsible for these failings.

Behind the resolutions, decisions and other documents we adopt in the United Nations, above and beyond the texts that we so painstakingly draft, there are realities of our contemporary world that are sometimes extremely harsh and cruel. In connection with Srebrenica, a subject mentioned in the draft resolution before us, allow me to recall a visit that I made to that city as a member of a Security Council delegation towards the end of April 1993.

Srebrenica, its population swollen to many times its previous size as a result of successive waves of refugees, was at that time already surrounded and under seige. The delegation went there a few days after the Security Council's adoption of resolution 819 (1993) - by which, as the Assembly will recall, Srebrenica had been declared a safe area - in order to show solidarity with the city and to highlight how very attentively the international community was following events relating to Srebrenica. We entered the city in armoured troop transport vehicles, painted white, the colour of the United Nations Protection Force. Wearing bullet-proof vests and blue helmets, my colleagues and I saw, not without emotion, hundreds of people lining our route and applauding the sight of an international convoy, a symbol in their eyes of protection and liberation.

Seeing all that from one of those vehicles, I remembered newsclips that I had seen in the movies about the arrival in 1944-1945 of allied tanks and troops in towns and villages that had been liberated from Nazi occupation and the enthusiastic welcome of the crowds. And I remember that all of a sudden I was overwhelmed by the painful realization that we were not liberators and that we did not have the means to dispel the concerns and end the anguish of a population that was threatened from all sides, deprived of all the conditions of a normal life.

At that time I could of course understand the political and psychological importance of the United Nations presence in Srebrenica, but not yet knowing what would follow, I hesitated to form an opinion about the future that awaited those people, about the future that awaited that charming little city tucked away in the mountains on that spring day, when everything radiated peace, tranquillity and the rebirth of nature. This was in the month of April 1993. The contrast between the natural beauty of the place and the tanks, guns and helmets that bore no relation to that ideal environment was astounding, shocking and hardly believable.

Today, I know how the story ended. We know the end of the story which was also the end of the lives of thousands of people whom we, United Nations envoys, had seen, with whom we had spoken and who had welcomed us - alas, mistakenly - as liberators. The history of the United Nations safe areas and what happened to Bosnia and its besieged cities compels us to attach particular importance to the provision of the draft resolution concerning a complete report on events in Srebrenica, to efforts to shed light on what occurred in that Bosnian city and, of course, to the drawing of the necessary conclusions.

Hungary has joined in sponsoring draft resolution A/53/L.55, and we hope to see it adopted by the Assembly without a vote. As a bordering State, Hungary is vitally interested in seeing stability return to Bosnia and Herzegovina, its economic development ensured and the theories and practices of intolerance, which have caused such material and psychological destruction, vanquished and replaced by coexistence and harmonious cooperation among all the citizens of that country, in a democratic framework, with shared functioning institutions and with full equality of rights without regard to ethnic, religious or linguistic origins.